Sage was ten minutes late to stream, but her viewers didn't put up too much of a stink. They let it go by the time she opened up the most anticipated horror game release of the year, intending on starting her play through. It was a ghost-hunting game, one with a multiplayer ability she planned to take advantage of with her community.
First, she wanted to run a few horrifying rounds of it alone to get the hang of the controls and scream at every jump scare. It's what people came back to her channel and stream for. Despite loving horror games, Sage could admit she was a wimp. Flinching and yelping at every little sound while keeping the lights of her apartment down low and the blinds closed.
She maneuvered her character through the haunted house, placing EMF readers, spirit boxes, and video cameras. All was well except for the silence deafening her ears. She leaned forward a bit, sweaty palm clutching her mouse. The door to safety was ten steps away, five, two…
"I can almost smell the exit," she told chat, licking her lips underneath her mask. That was her mistake, jinxing it. A screech tore through her ear, harsh and jarring. "Shit!" she yelped, mouse flying a few inches through the air, the camera catching a glimpse.
Her chat exploded with laughing emojis and insistent messages to clip that! Sage waved it off, escaping to where the rest of the gear was located. She needed a cross, salt, and a UV light to check for fingerprints. Sage listed these things out loud as she grabbed them, coming down from the jump scare. Right outside the front door, she glanced at chat again.
That was soooo funny.
LMAO you're a little bitch!
Don't say that!
Fuck you, get out of here!
She is a little jumpy today
More so than usual?
LMAOOOOO
"Very funny, guys," she sighed, falling back in her chair and twirling in a circle. "You won't be laughing once you play with me!"
Another stream of comments came in, but she ignored them with a laugh, resuming her play through. The static was thick in her ears, but she checked every door and closet diligently for fingerprints while placing salt in the halls to check for footprints. So far, there was nothing, so she took the stairs down to the basement to turn on the power and found a Ouija board. She groaned aloud, theatrically bemoaning her bad luck.
"What should I do, chat? Should I use it?"
Fuck yes!
Don't you dare chicken out
Do whatever you want; it's your play through
Don't be a pussy
Sage laughed. "Fine, fine, but I'm taking it up near the front door because, as someone so kindly pointed out earlier, I'm a little bitch."
The chat went wild at that because she didn't usually swear on stream, but maybe the pain in her arm was to blame. She took the Ouija board right to the threshold of the house and stood outside while activating it.
"What should I ask?"
Ask what room it's in!
Ask how old it is
How many people did it kill
Ask the ghost if it's a little bitch, lmao
Ask it what you are.
There were hundreds of comments rolling through the stream, but that one struck Sage like lightning. It was from a username that read: faelover1218. That couldn't be a coincidence, right? Was stupid, stalking Hunter in her chat? No way. He barely looked like the type to own a cellphone, let alone be a subscriber to her channel. She narrowed her eyes behind the mask, first asking what the ghost's name was to give herself some time to think.
If it wasn't Hunter, then could it be one of the other two men from that night? Lock didn't seem like the type to waste his time online, but that one guy, the pretty one…Maybe he was young enough to know about streaming, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that.
The ghost spelt out the name Brad, and everyone had a good laugh over it, even Sage beyond her panic. Her heart beat ratcheted up into the hundreds, making her palms sweat and her mouth feel dry. The overwhelming urge to pick at her cuticles steamrolled her, but Sage refused to do so on stream. Her viewers weren't aware of her chronic obsessive nature, and she'd like to keep it that way.
"Next question," she told the stream, eyeing the rolling chat. "Vote for it now."
Ask how the ghost died!
Ask how many people it's killed
Ask whether it's a demon or not
Ask…
Ask…
Ask…
The questions kept on flooding in, but she never saw a repeat of the one that'd rattled her so badly. She was glad for the mask because sweat dripped down her white as a sheet face, making her wish she could tear it off and throw it across the room. Sage hated that this new, awful development in her life was invading her safe space. If that guy really were here, watching, she wanted to throttle him.
"Alright, alright," she sighed, blowing out a long breath and taking another. "How many people have you killed?"
The marker moved, blinking with yellowed light before landing on the number nine. All of chat oohed and ahhed, pushing for Sage to go back inside and face the ghost head-on. She didn't want to think about real life anymore, so she obeyed, asking the board another series of questions until the ghost started hunting her.
She yelped, using the sprint button to loop the ghost around and around the kitchen counter as it groaned and hissed at her. Chat was blowing up with tips and encouragement, but she was in the zone. Leaning forward and holding down the shift key as she made a new beeline for the door. Hunts only lasted so long, and she needed to get the hell out of dodge.
"Shit! Go, dammit!" Sage screeched when she ran out of sprint juice a few steps from the door.
That's all it took for the ghost on her ass to strike, wrapping its hands around her throat and breaking her neck. She groaned, watching the ghost flash across her screen in a jump scare that didn't hit the mark through her fizzling chest. Sage slumped back into her gaming chair and spun it again.
"Why is there even a cooldown on that?" She complained.
When she came back around, chat was agreeing with her in mass, screeching about it being unfair. However, there was another message that caught her eye. It was barely there for more than a few seconds, overtaken by the flood, but it made her already swirling stomach drop to her toes.
Faelover1218: Add me in for the next one?
Her lower lip wobbled as she contemplated doing just that. Would it be a mistake to allow whoever this was in? She had no idea how to gauge it. For all Sage knew, she was chasing zebras and calling them unicorns. Fae were a huge part of the fantasy and paranormal romance reading community. She'd read enough of them to know that, and thus, not that strange to have a username like that.
You're overthinking again…that voice she fucking hated whispered, teasing the edges of her mind with sharp, dark talons.
But is it true?
Could it be true?
It's probably true.
Sage sighed, clicking out of the single-player lobby and opening up a shared one while hiding the code. She'd prove her sick, wayward thoughts wrong. This person couldn't be the same man, no matter how young he looked. No matter the username. No matter the vague yet targeted questions.
Shit.
You're an idiot, the voice told her, and she imagined it to be smirking.
"Alright!" She nearly shouted, clapping her hands. "Time to play with fans in my Concord server. You know the drill, go into the multiplayer chat room with your subscriber permissions and ask to join. My admins will send out the code to three lucky players! In the meantime, I'm going to grab something to drink. BRB."
Sage stood and walked out of the camera's line of sight while pulling out her phone and sending a quick message to her admin group.
If Faelover1218 asks to join, give them priority, please.
Then she took off her mask and downed two full glasses of water, hoping they would settle her nerves. For another thirty seconds, she pressed her palms into the counter and leaned back until her head was between her arms, stretching. It was something that always calmed her down in the past, but her foot kept tapping and her fingers started to, telling her it was a lost cause.
Sage stood, clenching her hands into fists and cracking her knuckles before slipping her mask back on, both metaphorically and physically. The chat was slower when she came back, lofi music in her ears encouraging a calming atmosphere for the stream.
Holding her breath, she checked the lobby, finding three people walking around and talking to each other while they waited for her to return. Two were usernames she didn't know of, and the third…Bingo. Her admins, those perfect, lovely ladies, had plucked faelover1218 out of the roaring crowd and invited him.
The anxious sweat on her palms spread to other parts of her body. Her lower back, her neck, and again across her forehead. Sage ignored it in favor of what inviting them could do for her. If this were really who she thought it was, maybe she could somehow interrogate him without it being obvious?
No, she told herself, that's a terrible idea.
Because what if he started outing the two of them to her entire audience? She didn't know what they'd do upon finding out she was some kind of Druid or something, but Sage didn't want to find out.
Here goes nothing.